Have you looked at your life lately?
You are probably reading this in a comfortable home, on a nice computer, iPad, or phone. You might be sipping a beverage (coffee from my Keurig maker, in my case), with your family happily settled in doing something fun or napping...whatever they are doing, they are safe. Most of us have good health, full tummies, and the luxury of doing whatever we want to do today.
And yet, isn't it interesting how much we find to complain about?
Let's see, I'll be raw and honest with you and start off with a list of stuff I could complain about:
I miss living close to my family.
Why does it seem like we never have enough money?
My son has autism and I didn't pick that adventure.
We are in the middle of moving and it's very chaotic.
It's really hot and humid right now.
I don't like my hair.
I want to lose more weight.
I have a hangnail that is infected and it even hurts to type right now.
The list could go on, but it's just dumb, at this point.
The reality is, we find something to complain about daily! Of course some of us have legit woes; death of a loved one, loss of good health, serious financial difficulties, etc. But MOST of us are just being spoiled brats.
Here's an ironic conversation I overheard yesterday while at my son's school; two women with their kids swarming around them were talking about their husbands. The first one blah-blah-blahed endlessly about how mad she was at her husband's ex-wife and how "half of his paycheck goes to her for child support!" "How nice it would be to be able to do more fun things if they only had more of the money that he was shelling out every month to his ex for the kids!" Finally the conversation shifted to the other woman, who then proceeded to launch into a complaining campaign about how her ex husband was not paying his child support money to her. I wanted to butt in and ask the first woman if she preferred to have a slacker husband who wasn't doing his financial duty for his kids? They seemed to miss the irony of the two of them vehemently complaining about (and agreeing with each other) the opposite sides of the same issue.
I have a feeling they'll just keep complaining about this for years.
Anyway, have you read or seen anything about Jacee Dugard lately? She recently gave an interview with Diane Sawyer and I saw a clip of it online. That girl lost her innocence tragically at age 11, and spent 18 YEARS brutally restrained, repeatedly raped, and controlled while living in impoverished conditions. She bore 2 children for her abuser and in this clip was talking about giving birth to the first one at age 14; while in labor she was alone, scared out of her mind, and yet she did it.
That just struck me! I've given birth three times in a safe hospital setting, surrounded by medical professionals and loving, supportive family. I never want to complain about any of the pain I endured, again. Not after knowing what that 14 year old girl went through.
Many times the questions we ask ourselves is;
"Why is this happening to me?
Why aren't I having the wonderful pain-free, problem-free life I want?
How come everything hasn't turned out like I wanted it to?
Why isn't my husband perfect?
Why are my kids so wild?
Why don't I have more money?
Don't I deserve a good life?"
What we need to be asking ourselves is;
"How is it that my life is NOT as bad as others?
Why aren't I the one dealing with a missing or murdered child?
How come I wasn't born in a country where I was raped around age 5
and then sold by my own parents into sex slavery
in order to give my family a few extra bags of rice?
Why isn't my family in a nation of civil unrest that tears us apart and forces us all into torture and abuse, including rape and being infected by HIV?"
Because the blunt reality is that NONE of us deserve the blessings that we have and the wonderful life that we are given.
It's by the grace of God that we are born to decent families in a prosperous nation.
It's by the grace of God that we have our basic health.
It's by His mercy that we aren't forced into
abuse, slavery, and a life of horrendous crime just for survival.
We gripe about our house when millions of people wish they had a safe place to sleep.
We critically judge our appearance in the mirror and devise ways to lose weight when millions of children literally starve to death every day.
We fuss with our hair, our nails, our clothes, and yet millions of kids wonder if they will live with their diseases long enough to become a teenager.
We moan about the mess and noise our kids are making when thousands of parents endure the nightmare of having their kids kidnapped and knowing that finding their dead bodies might be preferable to never knowing what happened to them.
Maybe your life isn't perfect. Maybe it hasn't turned out like the fairy tale you imagined that it would. But instead of focusing on what you don't have, let's try thanking God for what we don't have...those daily horrors that some people live and breath every moment.
Let's thank Him for what we DO have and remember that
..."but for the grace of God, there go I."
